The Grass languages are a group of languages in the

Ramu The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...

language family. It is accepted by Foley (2018), but not by Glottolog. They are spoken in

East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Wewak. East Sepik has an estimated population of 433,481 people (2010 census) and is 43,426 km square in size. History Cherubim Dambui was appointed as East Sepik's first premier b ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, with a small number of speakers also located just across the provincial border in

Madang Province Madang is a province of Papua New Guinea. The province is on the northern coast of mainland Papua New Guinea and has many of the country's highest peaks, active volcanoes and its biggest mix of languages. The capital is the town of Madang. ...

External relationships

Foley (2018) notes that Grass languages share very few lexical items with the other Ramu languages, with virtually no lexical cognates Banaro and Ap Ma. However, the Grass languages are still classified as Ramu due to widely shared morphosyntax and typology. Foley (2018: 205) leaves open the possibility of Grass being a third branch of the Lower Sepik-Ramu family, with Lower Sepik and

being sister branches. Like the neighboring

Yuat languages The Yuat languages are an independent family of five Papuan languages spoken along the Yuat River in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. They are an independent family in the classification of Malcolm Ross, but are included in Stephen Wurm' ...

, Grass languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first person pronouns, a feature not found in most other Papuan languages. This typological feature has diffused from Yuat into the Grass languages.

Classifications

The original Grass language proposal, also known as ''Keram'', included several languages, such as Banaro and Kambot (Ap Ma), that are no longer thought to be closely related to Adjora and Gorovu.

Laycock (1973)

Laycock (1973) rejected Kambot and noted that Banaro was lexically divergent, and therefore grouped it with the Grass ''family'' in a higher-level Grass ''stock'', a position accepted by Pawley (2005). Grass/Keram (Laycock) * Banaro *Grass proper: Aion (Ambakich), Adjora (Abu), and Gorovu.

Usher (2018)

Timothy Usher (as reported in '' Glottolog'') broke it up still further, with only Abu (Adora) and Gorovu kept together (in a " Porapora River" or "Agoan" branch), Aion (Ambakich) and Kambot (Ap Ma) grouped with the

Mongol–Langam languages The Mongol–Langam, Koam, or Ulmapo languages are a language group of Keram Rural LLG, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea belonging to the Ramu language family. Foley (2018) includes them within the Grass languages, but they were not includ ...

, and Banaro left as a primary branch of Ramu proper.

Foley (2018)

Foley (2018) provides the following classification. * Porapora languages: Aion ( Ambakich), Gorovu, Adjora (

Abu Abu or ABU may refer to: Places * Abu (volcano), a volcano on the island of Honshū in Japan * Abu, Yamaguchi, a town in Japan * Ahmadu Bello University, a university located in Zaria, Nigeria * Atlantic Baptist University, a Christian university ...

) * Koam languages:

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...

, Langam, Yaul-Dimiri * Banaro * Ap Ma ( Kambot / Botin) Foley (2005) did not include the Koam languages within Grass, but added them to Grass in 2018.

References

* {{Ramu–Lower Sepik languages Ramu languages Languages of East Sepik Province